Sony believes more e-books than real books will be sold within 5 years

Sony has a vested interest in the growing e-book market due to its range of Sony Reader devices. But one prediction the company has made may or may not surprise you. Within five years Sony believes more e-books will be bought than print books.

The prediction comes from Steve Harber, president of Sony’s digital reading business division:

Within five years there will be more digital content sold than physical content. Three years ago, I said within ten years but I realised that was wrong – it’s within five.

Haber believes that just like digital music, digital books are taking off and the market will transition to them. He also points to the uptake of e-readers, but also multi-function tablet devices as spurring the demand for e-books. To back this up Haber pointed to a recent Market and Research Resources survey conducted for Sony found that 11% of iPad buyers were getting one for reading.

There has also been talk of the e-reader as a standalone device disappearing due to the availability of multi-function tablets. But Haber doesn’t believe that’s true:

It’s just like digital imaging, where you can take pictures with a cellphone – and many people take pictures with cellphones – but if they want the best possible picture they’ll use a point-and-shoot camera or a digital SLR. You have your multifunction devices – like a tablet – that are available for reading and then you’ll have devices that are immersive. People will choose different devices for different experiences.

To support e-books Sony is launching the Sony Reader Award for Unpublished Writers, a new category in the Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers under 30.

I am split on the use of e-books. On the one hand I have fully embraced them for reading technical books which are usually very thick and heavy in paper form. However, for reading a novel, I still prefer a printed book.

That has more to do with where I read than what I read, though. I don’t own an e-reader device yet, so reading e-books away from my PC is difficult. I also don’t see a device on the market that ticks all the boxes. The Kindle is widely regarded as the best e-reader, but it’s just too expensive. The iPad is also a contender, but if you just want one for reading it’s also a very expensive option, plus you have to put up with the restrictions imposed by using an Apple device.

I’m sure Sony is right in thinking e-books will outsell print books within five years, but that prediction relies on better devices appearing on the market for reading those books on.

Speak Your Mind

samuel sampson

Nothings replacing books in popularity for a long while. Sales will be where the money is an that will be in both places. The music industry is faddy and cool while at this point the ebooks readers are sold for convenience. Until they’re mainstream books will be more popular. It all depends on how one views convenience my two year old daughter when taken to the store wrecks the whole place. When we give her a “Dohwa” (Dora) book she’s happy. We cant possibly schlep all her books so it only bides us some time.(We learned to shop quickly) Lets say we gave her a ebooks reader (with a silicone cover of course) with all her kiddy books on it and every time she touched the screen a page would turn. Shopping might actually become fun again. To me it’s worth the money. Sam from http://www.samsfreeebooks.com